Family Court Counselling “cost explosion” a result of not tracking Provider effectiveness outcomes, says Counselling Outcomes Researcher.

“The most significant reason that there has been a 62% increase in family-related professional services such as Counselling and Mediation (from $37.6 million in 2004 / 5 to $60.7 million in 2009 / 10) in the Family Court is because Counselling & Mediation service providers are not being formally assessed on the outcomes they achieve with clients”, says Steve Taylor, Director of 24-7 Ltd Counselling & Mediation Services, and a Counselling Outcomes Researcher.

Mr Taylor is responding to an announcement by Justice Minister Simon Power of a Review of the Family Court, for which the Terms of Reference were recently released.

“Over 70 years of Outcome Research Literature has illustrated very clearly as to those factors which make absolutely no difference in contributing towards a positive outcome for families and couples in crisis, and include:

1/ Belonging to a Professional Association (required by the Family Court as a condition of being Family Court Registered as a Counsellor or Mediator).

2/ Type of Qualification (required by the Family Court as a condition of being Family Court Registered as a Counsellor or Mediator).

3/ Gender of helping provider.

4/ Ethnicity of helping provider.

5/ Length of time in Practice of the helping provider.

6/ Training or Model Intervention orientation of the helping provider.

“The Outcome Research Literature is also very clear as to what makes a huge difference in contributing towards a positive outcome for families and couples in crisis, and include:

1/ Allowing the client to choose their own helping provider (as opposed to having one “assigned” to them from a pre-approved Family Court “list”).

2/ A positive and trusting therapeutic alliance between the client and the helping provider.

3/ Time bound, collaborative goal setting between the client and helping provider.

4/ Practical, guided direction and advice offered by the helping provider with the consent to do so from the client.

5/ The procurement of formal, measured client feedback on the performance of the helper, feedback which is then externally assessed, and compared to national and international effectiveness norms, so as to assess both helper effectiveness and cost / benefit efficiency and accountability.

“Internationally, only 3% (that’s about 1 in 10,000) of helping providers systematically track the outcomes of their interventions with clients, and yet those individuals and agencies that do formally track their effectiveness experience positive client effect sizes of around 200% more than typical Counselling or Mediation interventions, and this includes comparisons with well-controlled clinical studies” says Mr Taylor.

“In fact, given the nature of Family Court Counselling & Mediation being brief in nature (offering 6 sessions per Court application), the role of formal and effective Outcome Measures is even more critical, especially as demand increases for these services, while budgets are rationalised”

“It is time for the Family Court to dispassionately re-visit the underlying philosophies and assumptions that it employs when constructing the rationale for what drives their provision of Counselling and Mediation to vulnerable applicants to the Court process, and to carefully consider as to whether these philosophies and assumptions are in accordance with the evidence of what actually works, as opposed to what the Court may believe works – according to the evidence, these two factors are actually now mutually exclusive” says Mr Taylor.

ENDS

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